


The Majestic: A Love Story in Five Parts

by coco_palmolive



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: M/M, factory farm boy bands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-15
Updated: 2009-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-27 23:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coco_palmolive/pseuds/coco_palmolive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, it turns out that pretty much everything Ninomiya Kazunari thought he knew about anything is wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Majestic: A Love Story in Five Parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [font](https://archiveofourown.org/users/font/gifts).



> Originally written in 2009. Cursing, graphic depictions of m/m relationships. Also: I don't speak Japanese. Also: Ninomiya Kazunari feeds on your hatred and it just makes him stronger.
> 
> Written for font, who taught me everything I know, though definitely not everything she knows, about JE. This is my thank-you gift to her for that, except that I think I made her work harder on it than I did.

 

**PART ONE**

 

Ohno is Nino's boyfriend; that is part of the job. They have developed an elaborate concert skit around the topic, which they perform in feathery headdresses and shiny basketball-style uniforms, and Nino rubs Ohno's ass and they chase each other around the stage. On special occasions, like Nino's birthday, they kiss. Nino's costume in particular inspires feverish discussion about his endowments on the message boards. He reads them, frequently aloud. "They think I have a big dick!" he will crow, and then someone, usually sensible Sho, will suggest that maybe he just finds being Leader's stage boyfriend, you know, stimulating. And then someone, absolutely always Aiba, will shout, "He means, it gets you hard!" and they will all laugh, because it doesn't mean anything. And it doesn't. 

That's because it really is part of the job of being an idol. There was a special mandatory seminar in the jimusho, taught by Johnny himself, on how to create the impression that you are mostly into dudes. (Though you might be willing to make an exception for some very, very special girl.) Johnny had charts and graphs that demonstrated how a flirtation with a bandmate not only moved units, it won you, individually or with your special someone, more pin-ups in _Popolo_ and _Wink Up_ than your more assertively heterosexual colleagues. "The girls who buy those magazines are fantasizing about the guys they see onstage with you," he told them, "you honor their strong feelings when you do the same." He reviewed the types of coy remarks an idol might make to interviewers about another Johnny's good looks or admirable work ethic or beautiful voice. He advised them all to pick a single object for their affections and stick with it. "It's like the buddy system. And, anyway, no one likes a slut." In Nino's final lesson, Johnny had even called in the Kinki Kids to demonstrate how to kiss onstage without making actual lip-to-lip contact.

All five members of Arashi took the class, and all five can smolder alarmingly in the direction of any of the others, depending on the photographer's personal vision. But Nino is most comfortable smoldering at Ohno.

He likes him. Ohno can spend long hours on the bus staring into space while Nino thumbs away at his DS and doesn't expect him to make conversation. Ohno never minds picking up the tab. Ohno will always trade girls with him mid-evening if they discover that Ohno's is trampier, because of course Ohno has no problem charming the panties off even the shyest and most trembly virgins. Nino spends more time with Ohno than he does with even his manager, and he supposes this makes them best friends. But the boyfriend thing, that is definitely for the fans. Nino and Ohno are as heterosexual as it comes in Japan. They are pretty much drowning in pussy, 24/7.

Nino is no stranger to queers. No, let him rephrase that. In the most fundamental sense of the phrase, Nino is absolutely, 100-percent a stranger to queers. But you can't be an idol and not be intimately—but no, not intimately—the thing is, you meet a lot of fucking queers, as an idol. Non-threatening, girlish boys are what teenaged girls like, and Johnny's by default ends up with a fair few recruits who are genuinely non-threatening. If you know what Nino means. And then of course there have always been rumors about Johnny himself and this or that untalented and yet mysteriously promoted back dancer, and if Nino was always too awkward-looking and childish to catch the eye of top management, there are at least a couple of his bandmates who get blushy and weird whenever anyone suggests that, for instance, Hey Say Jump! got debuted early because someone's parents were about to sue.

That said. Nino can tell that Jun is definitely not gay, despite what people may have heard. He is giggly and shy around girls, but mostly he is particular about what he eats and which fabrics touch his body in a way that seems gay at first glance but which is actually idol professionalism of the highest order. They are all fussy about their hair and their clothes and their body mass index because these are the tools on which their livelihoods depend. But anyway. Nino can tell that Ohkura very definitely is, because he walked in on him getting blown by a muscular camera tech at last year's Countdown. Ditto Tackey, of course. And both Kinki Kids. The point is, Nino is pretty sure he can separate the lambs from the goats and the Dutch from the English, and so, yes, it does actually come as a big, big surprise to him one lunchtime when he throws open the door to Ohno's Maou dressing room to find Leader backed up against the dressing table with Ikuta Toma standing thigh to thigh in front of him, trailing a finger slowly along Ohno's glossy bottom lip.

Nino imagines that he himself would have acted startled, under the circumstance. But Toma doesn't even look up when Nino's "Hey, leading man, you're paying me back for this lunch" suddenly catches up to the sensation of his stomach dropping down to his knees. Toma just taps Ohno's lip lightly and reaches around him to pick up a tissue box. "There, now you don't look so much like you've been drooling," he says, and only then does he look over his shoulder. "Ninomiya!" he says warmly. And Ohno, who could not look like he gave a shit if you walked in on him going down on the makeup assistant—and Nino has—suddenly blushes. Blushes! Toma lounges against the table beside Ohno, and his mouth quirks, and all Nino can think is, "Fuck, since when is Toma a queer?" And then: "Of course, he has been pretty successful for a junior who never even got debuted." And then: Ohno is still blushing, which has to confirm it. Toma is gay, like I-believe-in-fairies gay. He's Kamenashi gay.

Poor Ohno! Here, he has worked side by side with the guy for three episodes now and has been too inside-his-own-head the whole time to even notice until it gets him in trouble. Never mind, Nino thinks, he will take care of this. Though Johnny never personally addressed it, Nagase was clear: it is an idol’s sacred duty to protect his bandmates from perverts. "Come on, Ohno," Nino says, tugging his arm, "we have to go now. You only have 20 minutes until your next call."

Ohno blinks. "Oh, do you think Toma…"

"Nope, nope, no. Only enough for two, sorry!" He holds up the bento he picked up at the little cart outside of the Shibuya train station. And because this is so obviously an emergency situation, he adds, "Hey, you only owe me seven—eight—fifty for your half, okay? Let's go." And he pulls them out into the hallway. "Dibs on the shrimp."

They end up eating in the interrogation room set. The first scene after lunch takes place in Ohno's law office, at the other end of the sound stage, so it's quiet here and dark without klieg lights blaring through the windows. Ohno arranges all the shrimp in a neat pile and pushes it over to Nino, then starts happily munching on pickles. "I got a text from Aiba about indigo dye," he starts to say as he selects his next piece.

And Nino says, "I can't wait to tell Jun he's gay. He's going to shit himself."

Ohno picks up a rice ball and bites into it. "Wait. Who’s gay? Jun's gay? I thought…"

"No, who’s gay is your buddy Toma is gay. I sure didn't see that one coming."

Ohno considers the matter. "Hm. No, I don't think he is." Ohno takes another bite of his onigiri, then returns to his original topic. "Apparently, the blue comes from a bacterial reaction…"

"Well, I guess that explains why you didn’t notice he was totally about to make out with you just now when I walked in your dressing room."Nino knows that he probably sounds a little jealous, but honestly, Ohno is just oblivious enough that someone could tell him that they were blowing him as part of a science experiment and he'd believe it. And this is Ohno's first extended time away from the other members of Arashi. Is it really a surprise to learn he's been getting into trouble on his own? So Nino has to take care of it. That is not jealousy; it is member-ai.

Ohno has put down his rice ball and is staring at Nino with a peculiar intensity. He looks, frankly, wounded. "Oh, hey, I mean, I know you would never," Nino says. Ohno's eyebrows lift. "I just don't want Toma to get the wrong idea. He's had to deal with a lot of disappointment in his career." Nino adds magnanimously, "He's really a good guy."

"You're looking out for him, then."

"I'm looking out for you." He reaches across the table with his chopsticks and picks up a piece of Ohno's eel. "You just get yourself into these ridiculous situations because you won’t ever tell anyone no." Seriously, Ohno should be grateful to him.

Ohno reaches across the table and touches Nino’s hand. "Do you know what it feels like…have you ever disliked someone so much that it kinds of turns you on?"

"Are we still talking about Toma?" he squeaks.

"Sort of.” Ohno takes another bite of his rice and pauses to chew; Nino gestures impatiently at him to get on with the story. “I had this idea about Serizawa and Naruse. There's real passion there, isn't there?" Nino is aware that his mouth is hanging open, a little. "The way Naruse looks at him. It’s a glare, but. It’s also a caress." He smiles to himself, pleased. "Or it just looks fake. ‘Boo hoo, you killed my brother, prepare to die.’" He takes another pickle. "Toma agrees."

"Oh, I bet he does," says Nino, and he reaches across the table and grabs the rest of Ohno’s rice ball and shoves it into his own mouth, even though he ends up choking and Ohno has to rush out to the craft services table for an extra bottle of water.

Nino is tempted to stay on the set for the rest of the afternoon to monitor the situation, even after he gets a text from his manager reminding him that he has a shoot at 3:30 and where is he, anyway? Nino puts his phone into silent mode and hovers behind the director while the crew films a medium-distance scene of Ohno sitting smugly in Serizawa’s father's office, then a close-up of the same scene from Ohno's perspective, then a close-up of the same scene from Serizawa Senior's, then an overhead. When Nino ducks over to say goodbye, Ohno has napkins tucked into his shirt collar to keep his makeup from staining his slim black suit. "I've got _An-An_ today. Try not to get ass-raped, okay?" The makeup girl puts her hand over her mouth as she giggles, then leans forward to fluff Ohno's hair in such a way as to drive Ohno's long nose directly into her cleavage. When he emerges again, Nino is still standing there, scowling. “If you can possibly help it.”

Between the TV appearance and preparation for his trip to Hokkaido and his understandably strong desire to make it past level six in Shadow Quest 4, Nino limits his further protection of Ohno's virtue to the occasional text. "Don't wear those gray pants in front of Ikuta, they show off your ass and he will likely become enflamed," he messages Ohno on Wednesday as he is waiting for the driver to show up. He is in the makeup chair at a photoshoot later that day when he adds, "Anyone with a nose that big cannot be a good kisser, it is anatomically impossible."

Ohno doesn't respond, which Nino doesn't think to worry about until the next day. He is sitting in the hallway outside Johnny's office on Thursday waiting for his manager to pick up his wardrobe and drive him to Akihabara for a photoshoot and thumbing out a conciliatory "In his defense, at least Toma isn't as big a twink as Tegoshi" when he sees Ohno himself in the midst of a pack of lawyers and bodyguards that goes straight into Johnny's inner sanctum without pausing. The door shuts behind them. Nino has to leave before he finds out what is going on. And then a few days after that, he emerges from his apartment to find Ohno's wild, intoxicated eyes staring out at him from every newsstand he passes, as the papers blare the news that Arashi's Ohno was photographed in a Drug-Fueled Sex Threesome.

He buys a copy, of course. There will be a band meeting soon enough where Johnny and the lawyers will drill them on the facts of the case as they would like them to be presented, if Arashi is forced to say anything at all on the topic beyond _This is not true, and we are sorry for making you worry about us._ This time, Nino wants his information undiluted.

As scandals go, it is a good one, better than Sho’s sex friend, which even the newspapers acknowledged he didn’t have, or the shirtless camera snaps of Aiba and his girl or Nino having the temerity to have a girlfriend and then the additional temerity not to break up with her the first time that word leaked out. Ohno’s girls are definitely hot. And Ohno's lips and hands are positioned close enough to their thighs and breasts that it is simply not plausible that they belted out a few songs at karaoke, had a few beers, and then said good night with a chaste bow at the curb.

Nino cannot help himself: he sends a text to Toma telling him there is something in the current Shuukan Gendai that will interest him and to pick up a copy without delay. Then he texts Ohno. "Call me. No matter how late. I'm headed to Sapporo but please call." And then a second: "You are still and always Leader."

But he doesn't call. Nino supposes that things are more than a little hectic around the Ohno household right now and graciously decides not to take offense. It takes another three days before they meet up again. After his flight gets in at Narita, the car carries him straight to the jimusho for a strategy session with Johnny's publicists. When he arrives, he finds the rest of Arashi sequestered in a brightly lit conference room. Sho is taking furious notes, Jun is glumly peering into a latte from a nearby coffee stand. Aiba looks as if he is wringing his hands underneath the table. Nino tosses his messenger bag into one of the empty chairs and turns to see Ohno, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his arms hanging limp between his open legs, like a rag doll. There are bruise-colored shadows under his eyes, and his hair looks like it hasn't been washed in several days. Ohno looks up at him. "So, Kazu," he says, "is this better or worse than being a fag?" When he smiles, it is bitter.

 

**PART TWO**

 

It is of course a relief afterward that they aren't disbanded, placed on suspension, or even made to take on an additional project around the jimusho like coaching the current crop of juniors on properly making love to the camera, as Akanishi did when he first came back from America. Nino is surprised that he is the only one who wants to talk about it, though. “I mean, two girls, it’s kind of impressive, when you think about it, and as for the part about the weed—well, it’s not like they’re reliable witnesses, anyway,” Nino remarks to Sho a few days later, as they are standing at the beverage station in the green room at TBS. It is the first moment in nine hours that there isn’t a camera pointed at either of them. “After all, they did say that Captain was a fantastic lover.” He isn’t prepared when Sho turns and actually slugs him in the stomach. "This isn't a joke, Nino." It hurts him, not least because Sho is still wearing a skull ring the size of a cell phone from their photo session earlier that day.

Arashi find themselves at the dawn of a new age of scandal management at the jimusho. While they are still largely utilizing the traditional technique of Denial, the photos are incriminating enough that it takes on the slightly hysterical tone of Who Are You Going to Believe, Johnny’s Entertainment or Your Own Lying Eyes? Ohno apologizes for worrying his cast mates when he returns to the Maou set. Johnny cancels printing contracts with practically every publisher who has touched the story. And then he continues to send them all out to every single interview, game show, or TV special that was already lined up to promote Maou and the new single.

Johnny’s lawyers advise Ohno not to speak if he can help it. There is simply no way to predict, even with a sympathetic host, whether "Tell me about your new show, Leader!" will accidentally be followed up with a, "So, tell us, are Naruse and Shiori going to share a kiss in an upcoming episode?" Which will just make everyone feel uncomfortable. So Ohno sits stiffly and looks at his feet, and on HeyHeyHey, when Hamachan asks Ohno what he’s been up to, Sho steps in and answers so many of the questions that Matchan forces Ohno to speak up and confirm that he hasn’t lost his beautiful voice.

Backstage, Ohno kicks over a chair in the guest lounge, and Nino tries to console him. "But this is great! You’re not being punished at all." Ohno’s face turns bright red and he clenches his fists at his side, like Naruse, and for a moment, Nino wonders what it would be like to watch him systematically destroy everything Nino loves. Sho tells him maybe he should just go home, that he can take care of Ohno this time. That evening, they leave in separate cars.

For a while, Nino pledges to keep his distance, until he remembers that his and Ohno’s entire success is based on not keeping their distance at all, and that this can be used to their advantage. So, at their next TV appearance, when Ohno comes out to the set and selects the chair furthest from the host’s desk, Nino perches behind him and rests a hand on his shoulder, fiddling with Captain’s hair and distracting both Ohno and the host to the point where Sho has to jump in and pick up the conversational thread for them both.

It is an old trick of theirs, designed to divert attention from their boring old girlfriends and drinking parties and on-set romances. And it still works. The next week, on Shukudai-kun, he pulls Leader back over to his side of the sofa from Sho’s, and Ohno curls against him, hiding his face in Nino’s shoulder. That evening, the message boards collectively pronounce that Ohno’s scandal will soon be behind them.

So Nino grows bolder. During an interview in mid-September where Nino and Ohno are seated on opposite sides of the host, Nino looks up and sees that Ohno is staring at him, and, flush with an unexpected surge of heat, he suddenly announces that his and Ohno's majestic love can no longer be denied, and that they are dating once again. At their next appearance, when one of the hosts asks what first drew them together, and Ohno answers, “My ass, he says,” the audience laughs long enough that the light comes on asking for silence.

Around the time that Ohno gains a solid lead with the fans in the Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix, Johnny—who, Nino heard from Sho, threatened to cancel Arashi’s upcoming tour entirely when he first saw that infamous shot of a giggling Captain with cheek pressed tight against some woman’s bare, skirtless thigh, that same man actually calls Nino in for a private conversation.

"You," he says, pointing to one of the buttery leather chairs in front of his desk, and Nino sits down quickly. "Ohno is fortunate to have such a…good friend."

There is something about the way that Johnny intones those last two words that causes Nino to blurt, "We're not that way or anything, it's just a thing we do…"

"I know what you do. Ninomiya." He says it with a certain emphasis, as if he has been recently briefed by an assistant in advance of this meeting; Nino has always tried to live his life in such a way that Johnny has no reason to need to remember his name. "I'm glad to know someone was paying attention during my little classes." He reaches behind him to the credenza and picks up a sizable parcel wrapped beautifully in Tiffany-blue paper. "Kobe beef!" Johnny proclaims. "Twenty-five thousand yen to the pound!" He pushes the package across the desk toward Nino . "For you, ten ounces. And a script. I hear that one in NEWS wanted this role." He smiles. "Now it's yours. I'll have your manager drop it by tomorrow."

Nino clutches the chilly package tight against his chest and bows deeply and repeatedly as he backs out of the office. Ohno is waiting outside for him, hands jammed nervously in his suit pockets. "He gave me meat," Nino says, a little dazed. He takes it home to his mother, who ends up slicing it up for shabu shabu. Ohno stays for dinner.

In short, the whole fake-boyfriend thing continues to serve them as well as it ever has. Ohno leaves Nino an impassioned message via the Wink Up boards about how there is no love in his heart save Kazu-chan, and later that week, Nino hears that Hey Say Jump's Chinen was found crying in a jimusho bathroom. Nino takes to wearing a certain pendant featured prominently in Ohno’s section of the most recent Arashi photoshoot, tucking it inside his shirt when he is in costume on his new drama for eighteen hours straight. And in early November, when Nakai makes a dangerously tasteless joke about marijuana to Ohno on Utaban, Nino watches as he cringes--then actually laughs. Nino celebrates by asking Ohno to be his special date to Jun's upcoming Christmas cocktail party.

The party had been a bad business from the beginning. It starts when Jun complains that no one ever wants to drink with him any more. Nino helpfully informs him that it is because they are all embarrassed by the way he will send his Diet Red Bull and vodka back if there is too much ice in it and demand a fresh one. "You know they spit in your drinks for the rest of the night," Nino tells him, mostly to see if Jun will actually start to retch.

Instead, Jun decides that he needs to remind everyone what a generous entertainer he is, what a convivial host. For days, he is on the phone arranging to have his white carpets steam-cleaned and ordering crates of beer that his manager has to keep ducking out to get delivered. At first, Jun plans to hand-letter an invitation for each guest, but he only gets through half of NEWS before his hand cramps up. "But, Leader, your penmanship is so beautiful," he whines, pushing the brush and the ink over to Ohno, and Nino finally has to grab one of the finished cards and runs the rest through the photocopier while Jun is at a voice lesson.

When they arrive, the luxurious sheepskin rug in the entry hall is already stained with red wine, and the room is so crowded that Nino can barely see into the living room. He surveys the scene: around the glass coffee table in front of Jun’s enormous television, there is a vigorous competition going on to see who can bounce a 100-yen coin into a glass of beer. Aiba bounds up to them and wraps them in a tight hug. Suddenly, he breaks away and bellows, "I love this song!" and starts jumping up and down where he stands, knocking over an elephant-shaped umbrella stand and landing on Nino's toes. Jun is nowhere to be seen, and the bathroom door is locked. Nino turns to Ohno. “There are no girls here. Not one. What kind of party is that?”

When the liquor runs out, somehow Nino and Ohno end up squashed together in an enormous Land Rover with at least nine other idols and headed to Roppongi Hills. Nino has had enough beer that he notices his eyes keep tracking across the backs of the heads in front of them, even though he is doing his best to hold them steady. One of Ohno's arms is jammed behind his back; the other is draped across his thigh, the hand resting near Nino's crotch in an almost neighborly way. In other words, a typical night out.

After they arrive, they find themselves moving together on the dance floor with the same pack of idols, Ohno slithering his way among the other dancers to find Nino again and again. He reaches over and loosens Nino's tie, then holds onto the length of it as he dances around him, rolling his hips and sliding his arms suggestively down Nino’s back, the fabric slipping gracefully through his fingers as he pulls away. Nino is displeased when Toma appears at Ohno’s elbow and murmurs something into Ohno's ear, arm resting on Ohno's shoulder as he leans in. Ohno laughs. "WHAT!" Nino yells, right into Toma's face, even though the bass has momentarily dropped out of the song playing and it is easy enough to be heard. "I said Jun is shitting himself!" Toma grins, and disappears back into the crowd.

"Let's sit down," Nino tells Ohno, holding him tight against his side so that they do not get separated in the crush. Ryo waves them over to his table, where finally there are girls, and all of Kanjani 8 chant "Drink! Drink! Drink!" at him and Ohno and pound the table until both of them have drunk an entire glass of beer, the amber liquid running down Ohno's chin and down the front of his shirt. Nino notices they are still holding hands, under the table, even though this is not the sort of place that lets photographers in. When he squeezes, Ohno squeezes back.

Yasu-that-way (so called because he is so obviously homosexual that it is seems uncharitable to the other Johnnys not to acknowledge it in some way) leans across the table and breathes beerily into Nino's ear, missing by just a little. "I like your style, Ninomiya." Nino quickly drops Ohno's hand and thinks now might be a good moment for a strategic exit to the men's room. "Don't think I haven't been watching you." Nino stands. "The buddy system!" Yasu-that-way shouts, thrusting both his arms above his head, victoriously.

The wait for the bathroom is endless. Nino insists on using a stall in all matters rather than a urinal—cameraphones, thank you. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of. Tonight, it seems as if only one of the two has any turnover at all. The relief of finally unzipping his trousers and letting go is almost sexual. He is about to flush the commode with his foot when the wall to his left begins shaking under his hand, and he hears an unmistakably female voice call out. "Oh! Oh! OOOOHHHH." He doesn't really think about it. He whips out his phone and squats down, blindly aiming his camera through the gap at the bottom of the partition. "OOOHHHH. OOOOHHH." He takes another shot for good measure, and this time the flash goes off. The pounding slows for a moment, and Nino stands very still. Someone bangs a fist against the stall door. "Hurry, please!" Nino flushes quickly and jams the phone back into his pocket, then washes his hands.

Of course he opens up his phone as soon as he is back in the crowd. The first picture is a field of white split by a red line that Nino imagines is the bunched up leg of a pair of lacy panties. The second is a thigh crooked over a shoulder, and the unmistakably hawklike beak of Ikuta Toma ready to dive back in.

Back at Kanjani's table, Nino tells Ohno he isn't feeling so well, and Ohno nods. "It’s that kind of party," he says, knowledgeably, and helps Nino on with his coat. They are hoping to find the driver of the Land Rover somewhere in the next block. Nino isn't above slipping him a couple of bills to leave the rest of their party behind and drive them home early. When they find the car, the engine is running and music is bleeding through the doors. Nino bangs on the driver side window, and suddenly Yasu-that-way's face swims out of the darkness. Nino notices a smear of pink lipstick around his mouth, and then, behind him, the same girl who had served their drinks inside. Her uniform top is unbuttoned to the waist and has been pulled away from one shoulder, and she crosses her arms over her pretty pink brassiere, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. Yasu gives them an enthusiastic thumbs up. Nino lurches away and rests his head for a moment against the side of the truck. "Is there a single Johnny's left who is actually gay?" he moans. Ohno reaches over and takes his hand.

 

**PART THREE**

 

The trains stopped running hours ago, but there are still plenty of taxis. "You should stay at my place tonight," Nino says, and regrets it almost instantly, but Ohno just breathes a quick yeah and settles back against the doily-covered headrest. Almost immediately, he is asleep.

Nino gives his address to the driver, then leans his face against the window and stares out. At this hour, the streets are basically empty but for other taxis, gliding along ahead of them in long ribbons of red light. Inside the cab sounds like the hiss of a record on a turntable after the final song has reached its conclusion. They turn down a narrow one-way street and come instantly to a halt behind a long line of cars, and Nino watches miserably as the meter ticks off another 20 yen or so every 20 seconds that they sit. They inch forward, doorway to doorway, and Nino looks over at this house's scattering of tools and bicycles in the front garden, and that one's trim little Honda, parked halfway out of the open garage. It feels like a place where families live. Nino has no idea where they are.

Finally the cab turns onto a wide boulevard lined with dozens of electric signs, each inching light slowly up to their summits, where the words Nikon or Coca-Cola or Sony burst into bright color. The back of the cab is bathed in orange, and Nino looks down at his and Ohno's joined hands, lying on the seat between them. Ohno's body slides a little further down, and his mouth falls slightly open against the upholstery.

When the cab comes to a stop at the curb outside Nino's building, he pulls his hand free from Ohno's. As he leans forward to place a wad of bills and coins on the little tray the driver presents to him, Ohno stretches and smiles, his eyes still closed. Together, they climb the two floors up to Nino's, Ohno’s hand on the small of his back, as if Ohno is afraid he might lose his way in the darkness, and the blaze of light when the door opens momentarily blinds Nino. "Change clothes?" he asks, and, in the bedroom, Ohno briskly shucks off his jacket and trousers, and reaches for the clean boxers that Nino passes to him.

Nino brushes his teeth in the harsh glare of the bathroom light and tests whether he is drunk enough to talk to himself in the mirror. "Ninomiya, you're drunk," he tells his reflection. He is unconvinced. He pulls his tie loose and lets the ends dangle around his neck like he is Frank Sinatra at the end of some long, boozy evening. For a moment, he preens, staring himself down with his best photoshoot glower. Behind him, electric blue light filters through the bedroom curtains, falling on Ohno's body in squares. He is already asleep again.

Nino lies down on top of the covers beside him, shirt untucked and pants unbelted, looking up at the ceiling and measuring the rhythm of Ohno's inhalations and exhalations. It is interesting to him how even and predictable the sound is, and he thinks about the way he has never met a single person who could convincingly feign sleep, as if being awake has a tension to it that actually makes its own undetectable hum.

He lies there a long time, and maybe he sleeps a little, but he is awake when Ohno shifts beside him and lifts his head from the pillow and blinks sleepily, eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. It is very late now. Their eyes meet. "Eh?" Nino whispers. He can hear a clock ticking in the other room. He can hear his own heart beating.

He is not expecting anything to happen, not exactly. But there is something inevitable in the way Ohno slowly shifts forward on the mattress, and their lips come together. Their majestic love. No awkward press of unmoving mouths while each of them waits for the other to push forward. No clash of teeth. No noses bumping, no drooling. Ohno melts into Nino's mouth, and within the first five seconds, Nino knows that after this night he will be a better kisser for the rest of his life, that anyone who has been kissed this way is going to weaken the knees of anyone else he touches.

It is slow, slow, slow, just their mouths moving against each other and the smell of cigarette smoke on Ohno's skin, the not unpleasant velvet of his unshaven cheek. Nino lifts a hesitant hand to Ohno's hair, and Ohno shifts and rolls half on top of him, their bodies pressed tight from shoulder to thigh. Finally, Ohno pulls back and looks at Nino a long moment, then slides his fingers under Nino's collar, and presses a kiss, then another, on Nino's throat, then his chin, then his jaw, until he reaches his lips again. Nino thinks: Not Toma, then. Ohno. He breathes him in.

He grows increasingly aware of their hips rocking together and the radiant heat of Ohno through the thin cotton of Nino's boxers, but Ohno's hands remain scrupulously on Nino's shoulders, or cupping his face, or lightly petting his hair. It is the lack of intent that inflames Nino practically more than anything else, and he suddenly pushes Ohno onto his back and scoots down the bed until he is eye to eye with the fly of his own plaid underpants. He pushes his nose against Ohno's skin, pushes aside the fabric and takes Ohno in with a tentative lick. Ohno moans once, and is quiet again, though not as still as before, and Nino slides his mouth down carefully. He is determined, at least, if he has never been in this position before in his life, with another man in his mouth, to make sure that Ohno feels a little of what Nino himself is feeling right now.

Which is, it seems, that Nino wants to blow his brains out.

They find a rhythm. Ohno moans more regularly now. Not Nino or Kazu or even anything as articulate as a more or a harder. He is polite, honestly, though clearly turned on. Nino sucks harder, and Ohno bucks forward, hands threaded now in Nino's hair, and Nino expects Ohno to warn him as he starts to come, seeing as how this is Nino's first time and all, and even he doesn't expect someone to swallow on the first date. But Ohno jerks and stutters, and Nino's mouth is suddenly full of salt and bitterness and heat, and his mouth slips off Ohno's cock of its own accord.

Ohno pants hard, once, and utters a single "Oh." He lies still for a minute. Nino can feel his blood raging.

And then Ohno is pulling Nino back up, melting into him again, and as he kisses away the bitterness from Nino's mouth, Ohno fishes around in Nino's pants, still only half unzipped, and slides his hand up and down the length of Nino's cock, back and forth, back and forth.

Nino's had better. He closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on it, the sensation of Ohno’s fingers, thinks about Ohno who is holding him right this very moment, those sleepy eyes and perfect lips, his broad chest, the tiny swell of his 28-year-old belly above his narrow hips, Ohno’s long, long fingers around him, the way the mattress squeaks each time Ohno strokes down and Nino thrusts forward—and suddenly Nino comes helplessly, like a firework that only arcs halfway up before dropping and bursting against the ground, all over Ohno's hand and his own shiny gabardine trousers.

They hold hands in the dark, lying on their backs. The light is gray now, and Nino can hear a stray voice from the street below, and the diesel grind of a delivery truck moving up a nearby hill. The room smells, frankly, of the spunk drying on both his and Ohno's clothes, the comforter, and the part of the sheet that got uncovered as the blankets wadded up beneath their twisting bodies.

Nino breaks the silence. "So it's you, then," he breathes. "You are."

"Hm." It sounds more like a no than a yes. Nino can feel the bed shift with Ohno's shrug. "It was good, though." The air hums around them. "I wasn't expecting it to be so—nice.”

Nino sits up, the fabric of the crumpled suit pants he is still wearing rustling as they slide against the comforter. "Wait a minute. If you're not, then what are we doing here. Ohno?" He can feel his voice getting a little hysterical but can do nothing to stop it. "What are we doing here?"

"You wanted to," Ohno says quietly. He doesn't try to pull Nino back down.

"No. I didn't. I didn't. I really didn't." Shit. His pants. Shit. His apartment. He can get up and leave now but where the hell is he going to go. He swipes at his lap with the sheet, his hands, his mouth, and then he bursts out of bed. He pauses long enough to pull an oversized jacket from the closet and then he is exiting the apartment in a clatter of keys and locks jangling. He half expects to see Ohno's round, sleepy face blinking at him from the bedroom doorway as he turns around and pauses to toe on his shoes. But not really. And he doesn't.

It is eleven days before Christmas, and out on the streets around Nino's apartment, the shop windows are full of red ribbons and snowflakes and stacks of wrapped packages. He doesn't want any of it.

 

**PART FOUR**

 

It's bullshit. New Year's is bullshit. All across Japan tonight, families are settling in together with their feet tucked under their kotatsu, slurping up their noodles, gaping at their tiny TVs. And Nino is not. He overslept. All afternoon, the streets were jammed with last-minute travelers and Nino was late enough to final dress rehearsal that his manager met him at the service entrance and nipped at his heels like a tiny, irritating dog, trying to move him along faster toward the main stage. Jun’s hair is ludicrous tonight, big as a country-western singer’s, and Aiba can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and Sho keeps sighing and making them start over again from the top when they don’t all come in on time. “Piss off,” Nino tells him, “everybody else is going to be half-drunk by showtime and we’re all going to sound like shit, anyway. No one cares.” Backstage, he takes his DS and goes over to sit with Ryo and NEWS. He only occasionally looks up after that, sometimes pausing between levels to remark to Ryo how Kamenashi looks like he’s getting fat and how he saw Akanishi trying to pick up some fat German girl two nights ago in Shibuya and too bad for Kame that Jin is never going to fuck him no matter how fat he gets. Ryo laughs until Nino wants to slap him. He puts his earbuds in and doesn't look up until Manager-san taps him on the shoulder and says, please, it's time to go on. Just before the lights go down, they gather in a circle near the stage like they always do, Jun on one side of him and Aiba on the other this time. “Let’s make this our best year ever!” Aiba says. Nino rolls his eyes.

They don’t make another appearance together until a few weeks later, when they are invited back on Music Station. Nino asks to share a dressing room with Aiba and plays games until the call comes to report to the stage. He makes a point out of sitting on the opposite end of the set from Ohno. “So what’s this I hear about Nino’s ‘majestic love’ with a certain member of his band?” the host prompts them, and Jun giggles and says, “They are two members whom I always see holding hands—onstage and off. When we were in Shanghai, we took our crew out to dinner and Nino was feeding Captain from his own chopsticks, like this—" Jun mimes dangling a long noodle over Aiba’s smiling, upturned face—“so they didn’t have to let go of each other!”

Ohno looks grimly down at his hands, and Nino butts in. “It’s not real. We’re just giving you something to talk about. Get serious.” And the host hastily signals for the next cue card and says, “Tell us about your new movie, Sakurai.”

Nino doesn’t blame Ohno. Out in the street that morning, Nino could see that the most sensible way forward was Denial, that old, familiar friend. He had stayed away from his apartment the rest of the day, deciding to use his precious time off to see the sights. Mostly he took trains, huddled down in the very last seat in the last car with a Nippon Ham Fighters cap he bought in a 7-Eleven pushed low over his eyes. He circled the city, changing trains whenever he began to feel there were too many passengers of the type that might recognize him. He got back to his apartment as the sun was setting to find the bed neatly made and only a light gray stain on the comforter and a damp-ish washcloth hanging in the bathroom to indicate anyone else had ever been there at all. When he crawled in bed a few hours later, the pillow he normally used smelled like Ohno’s hair, and he got up and found a fresh slip for it in the cabinet in the hall. After that, it was fine. He slept great.

In March, he gets booked for a photoshoot with Sho; the theme is jeans with wide belts. Sho’s belt buckle is some turquoise monstrosity. Nino’s is in the shape of a huge sparkly daisy that presses unpleasantly into his dick whenever he sits down. For one scene, Sho is dangling by his arms from the limb of a maple tree in spotlessly white sneakers, laughing, and Nino is supposed to be kneeling in the grass beside him, smiling down at a patch of clover. Instead, Nino suddenly crawls on his knees into the center of the frame and turns his back to the camera, toward Sho. He braces his palms on Sho’s hips and presses his cheek against Sho’s thigh. “Nino, what the fuck,” Sho begins, and the photographer interrupts him. “No, go with it.” Nino presses his open mouth just above Sho’s knee.

 

Johnny’s has booked an abbreviated tour for them that spring to capitalize on a short break in everyone’s schedules. Jun and Nino are alone backstage in Yokohama when Jun turns to him and says, “Hey, funny story about Toma,” and Nino says, “No, wait, I’ve got a really funny story about Toma,” and pulls out his phone. It takes him a minute to find the photos from Jun’s party. He hands it over and says, “Please don’t ask about the circumstances under which I acquired this particular item.” Jun frowns, holds the phone away and then brings it up close to his face, and says, “Holy shit, that’s hot.” Which was not really the response Nino was after, and he swipes the phone away again and stuffs it into his bag, under the damp briefs he changed out of after sound check.

He notices that he doesn’t recognize his own face in pictures any more. Backstage, he might flip through one of their photobooks—Jun likes to examine each of them for minor imperfections so that he can offer helpful grooming suggestions—and think, looking at himself, that’s a nice shirt, not recognizing it as the drab red-and-white check hanging in his own closet. His expression only looks vaguely familiar to him, like a person he often sees in magazines but whose features are no way related to what appears in his bathroom mirror. He doesn’t remember any part of his life where his hair parted so sleekly around his ears. He looks at his eyes darting nervously toward something just outside the frame and wonders what that man must have been thinking about when the camera snapped. He tries not to look at Ohno’s photos at all.

In Osaka, he sings “Gimmick Game” standing stock still at the center of the stage while his back dancers gyrate clumsily around him, trying to figure out when the choreography changed. They finally compensate by twirling around him as if he is some kind of tiny maypole, while Nino sings to his feet. In Nagoya, he sings “Happiness” bouncing up and down without ceasing for the length of the song and with a smile so toothy and intense it looks like he is about to lean over and eat one of the girls in the front row. They go nuts. In Fukuoka, he rides along on his section of the rolling stage with his mike hanging uselessly at his side, and for most of the last song, all of his lines go unsung.

They return to Tokyo briefly so that Ohno can appear in some play or other. Nino doesn’t ask for the details. Ryo calls and asks if they can meet. Because he thinks they are friends now and will happily pay for all the drinks, Nino agrees. They are just setting down to business in a bar in Shibuya when Ryo gets a text from Toma inviting them to meet him at some other club on the other end of Tokyo. It costs nearly 3,000 yen to reach by taxi, and when they get there, Toma is talking earnestly to a very good-looking girl at a booth in the back. The girl has long, straight hair that hangs nearly to her waist, and she is wearing a black-and-white-striped satin corset under a jacket that looks like it belongs to Toma. When he goes up to the bar to get them more drinks, Nino leans over the table and says to her, very seriously, “Fuck me instead.” He does her from behind over the back of Ryo’s couch about an hour later.

He doesn’t see the rest of his band until the middle of the week, when they are scheduled to appear on HeyHeyHey. They have just come offstage when Aiba’s phone chirps, and he casually flips it open as he is shrugging off the jacket from his costume. “Holy fuck!” he says, passing the phone over to Ohno. “Look what Yoko just sent me!” It is the picture of Toma from Nino’s phone, which Jun secretly forwarded to himself days ago, though he insists that he has only shown it to Pi. There are jimusho employees all around them, and instantly all five members dive for the phone. “Give me that,” Sho hisses, and immediately deletes the message, because giving it to Aiba is about three texts away from just posting it on the Internet. Jun says, “I absolutely will not accept the blame for this, Nino,” and refuses to hand over his own phone for review. Ohno looks sick to his stomach, but he doesn’t say anything at all.

A few minutes later, as Nino is rubbing cold cream into his lashes to get the last of the mascara off, Ohno throws open the door to his dressing room. “Sometimes I want to squeeze your head until it pops like a balloon,” he says, and the door bounces off the wall and slams back shut, and then they are kissing.

Ohno has him trapped against the sharp edge of the table, then drags him up so that they are both pressed against the mirror, and Nino’s DS goes clattering to the floor, along with a bottle of makeup remover, and he doesn’t even care. He is panting against Ohno’s mouth and he wraps a leg around Ohno’s hips to bring him closer, and then Jun is in the open doorway calling back over his shoulder, “No, nothing to worry about, Manager-san!” The three of them all stand very still for a moment. Then Ohno pulls away and smooths his shirt back into the waistband of his jeans. And Nino turns to watch the expressions flitting over Jun’s face and tries to slow his breathing. Running away is about the guiltiest thing he could do right now.

“Well,” Jun says, “you two are really upping the ante these days.”

He turns and yells out the doorway, “Okay, band meeting tonight! I don’t care if we have to stay up until four in the morning.” He claps his hands once and turns back to Nino. “You,” he points a stern finger. “Don’t be late.”

 

Nino is late. It is just that he figures Sho will be, too. He always promises to leave the TV station as soon as the broadcast is complete and then ends up taking half the staff out for beers to thank them for working so hard to make a good program. And Nino has things to do, dinner at his mother’s apartment and some mangas to purchase, and then he sits too long at the table flipping through one of his new books while his mother washes dishes in the next room, and when he finally looks down at his watch, it is past 10:30.

He pulls up outside Jun’s manager’s home in Takanawa to see a line of four cars already parked on the road opposite. Keiko-kun, the manager’s wife, bows Nino in and follows him down a dark hallway to the office, pausing only to turn over another teacup on the long table where all his band members are already gathered before she darts out again, sliding the door softly shut behind her. Sho is in the middle of a story about one of the other news readers, but he stops speaking as soon as he sees Nino. Aiba stretches the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and hugs himself, rocking back and forth. Ohno draws long pencil streaks on a single sheet of paper in front of him. He doesn’t look up. Nino kneels at his place and then looks up boldly at Jun, seated at the far end of the table, waiting for him to announce to Arashi what he had walked in on this afternoon.

Instead, it is Sho who speaks first. “Nino, you’re making us worry.”

Aiba interjects. “You’re being kind of an asshole, actually. More so than usual.”

Jun interrupts. “And maybe you think it’s okay because Johnny likes you, but Johnny doesn’t like anyone that much. Your dancing is weak. Half the time you don’t bother to sing.”

Nino answers, a little petulantly, “I sing.” Already, his heart is slowing down from the thumpity-thumpity-thumpity pulse he walked in with. Motivational lectures about the value of hard work he is used to.

Aiba says, “It’s like. It’s like.” And surely only Aiba is the only one of the five who could get away with saying something this sincere. “It’s like you don’t believe in Arashi any more.”

“I’m tired,” Nino whines. He knows he is on dangerous ground here. Obviously, they are all tired—Aiba, for instance, he knows has been up since three o’clock this morning so he could come in from Chiba for a sunrise photoshoot. And yet if they all know what it feels like to be this kind of tired, then maybe they will back off. Maybe they will just let him go home and get some sleep.

“You think Arashi is too big to get disbanded?” Jun says. “Ask Captain if he thinks Arashi is too big to get disbanded.” And for the first time since Nino arrived, Ohno looks up from his paper, his mouth set in a grim line. He looks at each of them briefly, then turns his eyes toward Nino.

“I trust Kazu,” he eventually says, and returns to his drawing. Beneath the table, Nino digs his fingernails into his palms to keep himself from saying anything he might regret later.

Outside, standing in the street as the others pull away, Jun touches his arm and says, “You think you’re the only one who’s ever felt this way?” He leans back on his elbows and lounges against the hood of Nino’s Toyota. “The way I see it, a multibillion yen company is working 20 hours a day, every day of the year, to make us irresistible. How are we not supposed to want to sleep with each other?” He smiles a little sadly and smoothes an appreciative hand over the glossy black paint, as if he is more comfortable giving the car a reassuring pat than Nino himself. “Please do your best,” he says.

 

Jun is tense during their whole flight to Hong Kong, and with good reason. Something goes awry after they touch down at Chep Lap Kok. Their plane is routed to a different concourse, and when they disembark, they are led down a long, fluorescent-lit passageway, then out into a wide-open room that turns out to be full of screaming fans. For just a few seconds, the five find themselves standing behind a crowd of girls standing on tiptoe and facing the opposite direction, waving uchiwas at nothing at all, and then the sound of screaming grows exponentially louder, and there are bodies everywhere, over and under and around. They are separated almost instantly, there are fingers jabbed in Nino’s eyes and fingers in his nostrils and mouth, and hot, food-scented breath screaming into his ears, and he clutches his carryon bag tight against his chest, sure that any moment someone is going to pluck out his heart and eat it. “Captain!” he screams against the din, and then “Help me, please, someone!” A second later, the bodyguard’s strong hands lift him out of the swarm of girls and deposit him on a small island of empty floor near another set of doors. Nino waves briefly and politely at the girls straining against the joined arms of the airport guard, and hitches his pants back up. On the other side of the doorway, he sees Ohno squatting low to the floor, his back tight against the wall. When he sees Nino, he raises an arm and Nino grabs it and pulls him up. His hand is cold and clammy.

“We’re us and they’re them,” he says. “And you don’t get to just stop being an Us, Kazu.”

He presses his face against Nino’s, the two of them alone for the briefest of moments in this little used hallway, in this strange city. Then he picks up his shoulder bag and turns to walk out to the van. 

 

**PART FIVE**

 

In the end, it turns out that pretty much everything Ninomiya Kazunari thought he knew about anything is wrong. Back in Tokyo, the jimusho books four of them—Sho is on assignment in Australia, doing a special on climate change—onto a new television program. They are told they will be playing videogames in front of an audience. For once, Nino doesn’t drag his feet and whine all the way to the studio. “Please prepare to be humiliated by my superior skills,” he tells the others as they are sitting in Makeup, and when he glances over at the next chair in the mirror, he sees Ohno smiling a secret little smile to himself that makes Nino flush hot clear down to his toes.

Onstage, they are led to a bench in front of an enormous green screen. “You’re Leader, right?” the host asks, and tries to hand over a bright orange controller to Ohno. He shakes his head. “If it’s videogames, then…” He turns to the rest of Arashi. “Which one of you will it be?” he muses, looking back and forth at all their faces, before thrusting the controller into Nino’s hands. “Do your best, please.”

When they sit down, the video crew boots up a graphic of what looks like a rollercoaster track stretching before them and over a lake of bubbling lava. “All right, Ninomiya,” the host says, “we’re going to ask you a question, and you’ll press the button when you have an answer. If you get the answer right, your cart will roll forward. But if you take too long or give the wrong answer, you’ll stay in the same place. And if you stay in the same place too long, the weight of your cart will melt the track and you’ll fall into the lava and die. Any questions?”

“What kind of game is that?” Nino cries. “This is dumber than If It Moves, Shoot It!” The audience is laughing uproariously and his members are falling all over each other on the bench beside him, but Nino is serious.

“First question!” chirps the host. “What is the core belief of the economic philosophy known as the Austrian School?” All around him, his bandmates groan.

They burn to death quickly. “Oh, god,” wheezes Aiba, who is practically crying from laughing so hard, “why is this the time Sho isn't here?” Jun buries his face in his hands. Ohno puts an arm around Nino and says, “Your performance was shameful.” Nino reaches around him to swat the back of Aiba’s head. “Laugh it up, morons,” he grouches. But then Ohno’s arm moves down to his waist, and he pulls Nino’s head against his shoulder, and Nino cannot find it in his heart to stay angry.

They’re recording the new album now, mostly in pieces and pairs since they each have multiple other commitments. Since neither he nor Jun has a drama this season, it is often just the two of them. “The least essential part of the process, ” Nino tells him. “Well, maybe if Aiba were here, too.” Sitting at the sound desk in the studio as Jun struggles to stay on key inside the booth, even with enough pitch control applied to make him sound like the world’s sexiest robot butler, Nino scribbles down a couple of sentences about coming out of a dark movie theater into blazing summer sunlight and hearing the person beside him say, “Come here.” He thinks it could make a nice solo, but it isn’t quite there yet. In his head, the piano sounds like waves crashing on a beach.

Jun has started another diet, claiming he looks bloated from drinking beer during the long nights waiting for the rest of the band to arrive. Nino follows him down to the jimusho canteen, watching him pick up sweets and examine them and then set them back down again. He selects a cup of hot broth instead. Nino chooses a pork cutlet sandwich, partly because he likes the way the bread has been precisely engineered to fit the edges of its box, and also because it was marked down at the end of the lunch shift. Just before they reach the cashier, he adds a fancy slice of mocha chocolate cake to his tray. When they sit down, he pushes it across the table to Jun. “Who says you even have to eat it,” he says. “Maybe it’s enough to know it’s there if you want it.” He pauses. “By the way, you owe me 450 yen.” Then he ends up eating the cake himself.

The night the initial vocals are completed, they all go out drinking in a private room at the top of an office tower in Ginza. Aiba’s new girlfriend makes each of them dance with her, and Nino watches sleepy-eyed from the table as Ohno bumps his hip against hers, snapping his fingers above his head in counterpoint. Back in the booth, he sits companionably next to Nino, their legs touching from hip to knee. When he leans across the table to listen in on a story that Sho is telling Jun, he braces his fingers along the back of Nino’s neck, and it feels like cool rainwater dripping down his collar. He shivers.

Sho says, “Apparently his new girlfriend got the picture on her phone from one of her friends while she was on a photoshoot yesterday.” Every few months, Nino’s snapshot surfaces briefly to ruin Toma’s life, then goes underground again just before it penetrates the inner circle of the Johnny’s scandal team. Nino smirks. Ohno squeezes his thigh under the table, closer to a pinch than a caress, and he is suddenly, shockingly, hard.

Nino drives them all home that night, and he lets Captain off second after stopping at Sho’s, even though Jun’s place is closer. As Ohno crosses in front of the car, his smile flashes brilliantly for a second in the headlights, and he turns and waves at Nino just before he ducks into the front garden of his parents’ house. Nino guns the engine as he tries to pull away from the curb, because he has forgotten to put the car into gear. “What are you doing,” moans Jun, flopping around dramatically in the passenger seat, and Nino doesn’t know the answer to that. He really doesn’t.

At the end of the summer, Johnny’s hosts a luncheon one Sunday afternoon in celebration of Arashi’s tenth anniversary. It feels like the hottest day of the year. Sun beats in through the wide-open glass of the restaurant’s terrace, and there are 75 minutes of champagne toasts from this or that company dignitary. Nino slumps in his seat, too tired to eat the free lobster salad and the tiny radishes and pickles cut up to look like perfect little flowers. He feels hungover from lack of sleep, blanched and drained of essential minerals, even though he had stayed home the night before playing Phantasy Star Zero and made an early evening of it. Tomorrow he is due on set at 6 a.m. He props his chin in his hand and considers sneaking his DS under the white tablecloth. Even Sho cannot be bothered to do more than clap his hands once or twice after each speaker sits down.

Afterward, Ohno follows him down to the parking garage. “So that’s over,” he says, rocking back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. He smiles down at the ground. He rocks forward and loops his fingers into the front pockets of his trousers. “Hmm,” he murmurs, standing close enough to Nino to send vibrations down his spine, even though they aren’t touching. Then he looks up and says, “Kazu, please take me home now.”

Nino keeps his eyes on the road; sunlight glimmers off the blacktop in the distance like puddles of water. Ohno rides in silence beside him, hands crossed in his lap. Nino looks over a few times to make sure he is still awake. He flicks on the radio, but even turned low it seems too loud, and he turns it off again. They say nothing at all for the entire ride, not even when Nino pulls up at his building’s service entrance and hesitates for a moment after the security gate swings up to let them into the garage. Nino pulls slowly into his parking space and lets the engine die.

Ohno follows him up the stairs; they don’t touch. Nino’s hand is shaking a little when he pulls out the key, and it takes him a couple of tries to get it in the lock. Inside the living room, light floods in from the balcony and fills the air around them with swirling specks of dust. Ohno walks toward the bedroom and stands in the doorway. It’s darker in there, the navy blue curtains still drawn, and Ohno has moved far enough inside to become mostly a shadow. Nino watches as Ohno unfastens his belt buckle, then stands there with his hands resting on his hips. Nino walks over and stands in front of him. They press their foreheads together and breathe deeply.

They stand like that for a long time, Nino’s hands now on Ohno’s belt, Ohno’s hands lightly gripping Nino’s elbows. With a tiny sigh, Ohno steps back and begins to unbutton his shirt, then shrugs it off his shoulders and sets it aside. He slides off his pants and folds them carefully. Next, he reaches forward and unbuttons Nino’s shirt, then unfastens his trousers, and Nino steps out of them. Ohno pulls back the covers on the bed and they lie down carefully on the bare sheet, facing each other across the mattress. And then Ohno rolls on top of him, their skin pressed hot and damp against each other’s from their shoulders to their feet, and finally, finally, Nino kisses him.

Much later, when he opens his eyes, the room is flooded with sunlight, and Ohno Satoshi is smiling down at him.


End file.
